October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The Actual Dance is, among many different things, about breast cancer. It is also about love. It is also about relationships. It is also about spirituality and what life really is. It is about a lot of things.

In October in recognition of Breast Cancer Awareness I will post a daily blog with a reflection about breast cancer. The reflections will stem from something in the play. (All quoted lines are text from the play.)Day 18:The Most Amazing Thing.The Actual Dance is the name of the play – it is also the ritual of the end-of-life experience with someone you love. As I explained yesterday it takes place in “The Ballroom” – another worldly (alternate universe?) place. The specific “dance” though is “unique, designed if you will for the specific dancers.” “The most amazing though is the orchestra. You see the orchestra itself doesn’t even exist until it is needed. As it is needed somehow the musicians know and it forms.” As I saw the Ballroom in my mind I would also picture the members of the orchestra first as merely shadows of musicians skirting along the back of the darkened ballroom, getting ready to enter, open their cases and being to play whatever song the dancers themselves wanted to hear. When you dance – either yourself or as the dance partner of someone you love – you then hear that song and it is the song of our heart and of your life. Our song – Susan and my song – was (and is) Unchained Melody – “we fell in love with it the first time we saw the movie Ghost.” I can remember listening to that song over and over again “in the real world” as the days of our treatment became darker. I remember the evening I called our favorite radio station and asked them to play Unchained Melody at 11 p.m. (our normal bed time) every day, and why. Not possible he said, just one time. Just tonight. At 11 p.m. he announced a special dedication: “Sam and his wife are going through a tough time right now and he wanted to dedicate Unchained Melody to her.” (This quote is note from the play.) We laid in bed touching and listened. “Oh, my love, my darling I've hungered for your touch…”

Task of the Day: Start a diary. Write down how you feel about what is happening. If you are past treatment write your own story. The mere writing can be helpful in reconciling your feelings about what has happened.